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Bitcoin is a Cult

adamcaudill.com

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Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#121

Post by nadaviv »

jaequery wrote: post #27

can someone name one successful startup that actually utilizes the blockchain to do something they couldnt have done without?

It's an open-source project and not a startup, but I think that Namecoin [0] is a very interesting non-currency use for blockchains.

It is a decentralized name registry that maps domain names to public keys and IP addresses, removing the need for Certificate Authorities and resolving Zooko's triangle [1].

I do agree that blockchain is insanely over-hyped, has very few real use-cases and mostly used as a PR tool in ways that makes no sense. Sound money and cryptographic identity registries are among the only reasonable use-cases that I can name.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#122

Post by jenga22 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #103
jenga22 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I agree. I am also going one step further and arguing that crypto is more of a fan club then a cult. There are cults way stronger that illicit a far greater emotion reaction that crypto. Even now, when the price is in the toilet, a lot of really smart people are having sane discussions across sub-reddits. And those very smart people are still checkin in code and making improvements. This has happened before. D…

> BBS era and ARPA Net era These services were launched to solve a practical problem. Bitcoin was launched as the manifestation of an ideology.

You sure about that? Arpanet was created to exchange short messages in case of a nuclear attack on the United States rendered all above ground communication and survivability useless. I hardly consider that a practical use case. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_during_the_Cold_W...

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#123

Post by afterburner »

biql wrote: post #112
Synaesthesia wrote: post #51

When I first got into bitcoin I thought it could be a wonderful alternative to the current monetary system, I especially hoped it would be more equitably shares. Unfortunately it’s turned out to be as unequally shared as our current wealth is, if not more. Perhaps some kind of coin where everybody in the world is issued the same amount or something.

As along as everything else is unequally shared in the world, distribution of coins will merely reflect that as it's a medium of exchange. Even if material wealth was reset and equally redistributed, the same processes that caused it to be unequally distributed in the first place, will apply again.

Even if the doctor could fix your broken leg, you'd die of old age eventually anyways.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#124

Post by Abidarn »

awt wrote: post #111
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What it actually is is more important than the misrepresentations presented by various misinformed parties Fair enough. Government bonds let countries deficit spend. They are also a stable store of value. These attributes make them useful. Bitcoin is neither of these. Like government bonds, it does not behave like money.

Government bonds are stable if you ignore tail risk. Governments tend to collapse eventually, at which point your bonds are not a great store of value. Bitcoin is however similar to a government bond in that it a) has value, b) is not directly useful for consumer transactions. Also, I dunno that behaving like money can be put in such stark binary terms.

Bitcoin could be similar to art in those terms. A van Gogh has value and isn't practical for consumer transactions. Your argument has painted itself into a corner and the next step is to knock a hole in the wall.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#125

Post by simias »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #19
Iv wrote: post #3

Bitcoin is a tool for tax evasion and money exchange on criminal assets. It turns out that also some geeks like to use it to bypass banks incompetence on international funds transfers but tax evasion is the use that drives BTC's value. The cult is just a small visible part of it but is a pretty minor aspect of it. BTC would exist without the cultists as long as Russian or Saudi assets need to be transfered without to…

That’s media sensationalism. BTC is not remotely anonymous and is useless as a tax evasion mechanism. Your money still has to go through someone to turn into BTC, and that’s the same as any other money laundering operation. Once their books are audited, your “safe haven” is worth nothing.

I don't completely agree, you can move BTC around, mix it and exchange it for other cryptocurrencies while leaving only a very small trail. You don't have to involve other people directly, you don't have to carry duffel-bags of cash across borders etc...

Of course if your money starts in your "books" before being converted into cryptocurrency then yeah, it's useless. But that's not the use case, it's more about laundering money that's not in the books to begin with (corruption, black market, undeclared sales etc...).

I believe that right now the main deterrent to this scenario is the same reason people don't use cryptocurrencies for legit use cases: it's wildly unstable and you have to convert it to dollars or some other "fiat" to do anything with it.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#126

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jenga22 wrote: post #122
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BBS era and ARPA Net era These services were launched to solve a practical problem. Bitcoin was launched as the manifestation of an ideology.

You sure about that? Arpanet was created to exchange short messages in case of a nuclear attack on the United States rendered all above ground communication and survivability useless. I hardly consider that a practical use case. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_during_the_Cold_W...

The U.S. government considered it a practical problem. That’s why they paid for it.

If it helps, replace “practical problem” with “a problem customers will pay you to solve.” ARPANET had that. Bitcoin, on the other, never had an original sale. It was mined as a curiosity and then jumped from narrative (“currency of the future!”) to narrative (“store of value!”) to narrative (“mostly goes up!”)

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#128

Post by awt »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #117
awt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government bonds are stable if you ignore tail risk. Governments tend to collapse eventually, at which point your bonds are not a great store of value. Bitcoin is however similar to a government bond in that it a) has value, b) is not directly useful for consumer transactions. Also, I dunno that behaving like money can be put in such stark binary terms.

> Government bonds are stable if you ignore tail risk Nothing is eternal. That doesn’t make everything ephemeral equally risky. Bitcoin is a speculative asset. Speculative assets are volatile by design (you want them to go up). More critically, government bonds’ role as a store of value is ancillary to their core purpose: to enable public deficit spending. > Bitcoin is however similar to a government bond in that it…

The point is not that Bitcoin is a government bond, if that wasn't obvious, but that just because some people said it's a currency and proceeded to build failing businesses on that faulty premise doesn't preclude it having actual, unrelated uses, such as a store of value with a vastly different risk profile than any other asset ever known.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#129

Post by awt »

Abidarn wrote: post #124
awt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government bonds are stable if you ignore tail risk. Governments tend to collapse eventually, at which point your bonds are not a great store of value. Bitcoin is however similar to a government bond in that it a) has value, b) is not directly useful for consumer transactions. Also, I dunno that behaving like money can be put in such stark binary terms.

Bitcoin could be similar to art in those terms. A van Gogh has value and isn't practical for consumer transactions. Your argument has painted itself into a corner and the next step is to knock a hole in the wall.

Saying Bitcoin is like one thing does not preclude it from being like other things. Never the less, it's not necessarily useless just because it doesn't have the use some people mistakenly thought it had.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#130

Post by Myrmornis »

Seems a silly article. The fact that bitcoin has attracted some idiots is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that bitcoin is a great success, and destined for continued success and not at all a cult.
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